Operation:Megatrip Part III: Charlottesville

We were on our way to Charlottesville. Never in a million years would I have thought I’d actually be doing this. We first had to stop in Columbia at USC to drop off Chris’ car. One of the first things we saw was this:

Yeah baby this trip has begun. At USC we met up with our beloved Meghan who was unable to go on the trip :(. We tried our very best to not rub it in….bahahahaha who am I kidding we made her feel TERRIBLE. We left her in tears and officially put the pedal down for Charlottesville, Virginia.

We had one plan for the night and one priority. Millers.

For those unaware Millers is where it all began. Dave used to bartend there. The band held their first practices upstairs. This was the place to see If you were a Dave fan in Charlottesville. On the drive we talked about primarily one thing. It went against our entire rulebook. We talked about what we thought would be busted out in Cville. We usually refrain from even mentioning the songs we want to hear beacause we are for some reason highly superstitious that we will jinx our chances of ever hearing it. For what was being hyped as the biggest shows of the year we broke our rules.

Nah dude Blue Water, JTR, Captain, SPOON they’re all gonna be busted out. It was safe to have high hopes for these shows.

We arrived to our cabin at about 7 o’clock, met up with our Asheville buddy Jason (who’s a cop) got ourselves all dressed up in our Plaid sports coats, and went to town. I felt like a little 4 yeard old boy on Christmas morning. We were about to enter Charlottesville, Virginia.

We drove into town and parked near the Downtown mall. We walked from there straight to Millers. All of us giddy. We walked inside and to our beautiful ears Crush was playing over their speakers. It was one of the most surreal experiences of my life. We were listening to DMB where it all began.

Believe it or not this baby doesn’t drink. I’ve been saying for years that my first beer would be sipped at Millers. Being here confirmed it’d be worth the drive. We all were taken upstairs to the restaurant above the bar. Chris, Will, and Jason all ordered their lovely brew of choice making me very envious. We all decided what we wanted to eat then quickly folded up the menus and put them in our pockets. We all had devilish grins. Each one of us so happy to be there.

This is a photo of Chris and Will bragging to everyone who would listen via text message. Chris is probably taking a photo of his beer. I also took a photo of my first drink at Millers.

(My gut told me Don’t Drink it.)

We all got some of the most delicious sandwiches I’ve ever tasted. I highly recommend eating there if you ever get the chance. While eating I told Will if I were him I would want to have the glass that I had my first beer from Millers in. I then brought the topic up “If you could steal anything from Millers, What would it be?” hahaha. Chris said a mug and then I looked at all of them and went “A SPOON!” we all laughed hysterically having everyone stare at us. We began to look around for plate trays but had no luck. The idea was funny but sadly didn’t seem possible. Chris and I went downstairs I bought a shirt and Chris bought some bumper stickers. We all went outside and got our photo taken in front of Millers. My favorite photo of us from the trip…well second favorite. (You will see)

We were outside when we lost Jason. We had no idea where he was. We figured he was using the bathroom or something but he was gone for over six minutes. We then see him walk out of Millers hands in his pockets. He approaches us and holds out 4 metal spoons. THE FREAKIN COP got us spoons hahahaha. He in a quick moment won our approval.

Now with our new treasure we decided to explore the rest of the downtown mall. Everything was closed but we knew we would be able to come back Saturday. We ran into Kayla and her friends (proof that we’d be seeing a lot of our DMB family at these shows). We took a bunch of photos this night; one being this:

From the Cville shop we walked towards the very end of the mall where to our pleasure was a giant wall that people wrote on with chalk. This wasn’t vandalism it was encouraged. They left pieces of chalk for you to use. We quickly noticed that Dave fans had already left their mark. Here are some of the marks we left.

You can say we left our mark. We left the downtown mall and headed for Walmart. We all needed a few supplies and food for the line the next day. We got to Walmart in our plaid and staches looking very sketchy. I then came up with this brilliant idea. We already were all wearing LoVE shirts to the show…how funny would it be a we all had Babies for if they play Granny. ( the ending of Granny goes “LOVE! hah hoom hah hoom hah hoom BABY! oom bada oom bada oom bada oom” ) To which Chris stared at me and said “Devon, you already look like a pedophile….I’m not sure the Baby would help you very much.” Regardless:

We now had to search for a food that would be able to last the entire day in line. Chris bought Spaghetti O’s and I being much more knowledgeable bought these babies!

It is by far the most practical thing you can buy for a day in line at the concert. There were six total peanut butter and jelly uncrustables in the box for a total of $3. $3 and I fed myself for an entire day. See these suckers come frozen. You let them thaw out on the pavement in the sun for a good while and by the time they are ready to be eaten….YOU ARE READY TO EAT! It’s genius, I know. We all bought one box each 🙂

From Walmart we decided we would go and get a glimpse of the JPJ Arena. We wanted to see if anyone was already in line. It was about 10:30 at this time. We drove by campus, by the soccer fields….PAUSE…. At the soccer fields they were playing I KID YOU NOT Quidditch. We saw all these students running around on brooms and some chick dressed in a yellow shirt running around like the golden snitch. UVA….you rock. CONTINUE…We arrived at the JPJ where they already had parking signs up for the shows. No one was in line yet However later that night we would get a tweet from Stefan saying people were already freezing their private parts off. We then drove the fifteen minute drive back to the campground and prepared for what little rest we had ahead of us. We went to bed at about TWO and woke up at about SIX. This was our sleeping schedule for the whole week. We are pros. We would rest. For when we woke up, it would be a day that determined if this crazy trip we all embarked on would live up to the hype.

DUNUNUNUNUNUNNNUNUNUNUNUNUNUNUNUNUNUNNNNNNN!!!!!

DRUMROLL PLEASE!!!! THE MOMENT YOU HAVE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR!!!!!!!!

CHARLOTTESVILLE NIGHT ONE:

We got breakfast at McDonalds then walked to the venue on the way we saw a sign that said “Child Development Center” so naturally….

We took our pedophoto.

We arrived to a small line of people that had been there since midnight.

Lemme tell ya they are devoted. We got there at seven and it was FREEZING. Like COLD. Granted I’m just a baby cause I’m from Florida. What is this cold bidness!?

We got in line and made friends from all over the place. New York, California,Some Cvillians, people from every coast were here. People that had attended all the major shows. Every one of us had stories to tell about the shows we had seen in 2010. I was able to brag about both nights in West Palm while others shot off about Wrigley, Gorge, and MSG. It was like a bunch a kids with Pokemon cards. Who had the better collection. It made for great discussion. Many were jealous of us hearing the Spoon tease in North Charleston. Even more were jealous that we caused the Spoon tease in North Charleston. We made friends with some guys who were making signs for the pit. We made one sign that said “Grey Street 3rd verse”, and another they made that had the guitar tabs for Halloween with ghosts and bats on it. These guys had a friend who was arrested the night before and wasn’t sure if they’d be able to make it to CVILLE. The story was awesome. Later on in the day we got word that they had been bailed out and were driving full speed to make it to the show on time. THEY DID! GO THEM! hahaha. The people were all very generous and wouldn’t care if you got up and left. They let you come right back to your spot in line. We left to go use those dandy blue port-o-potties that you had to walk ten miles to get to. On the way Chris discovered this:

This brought us back down to earth. Where we were suddenly had so much more meaning.

We returned to the line by now it was around 4 and they were supposed to be letting us in at 5. With the help of our new friend Brett, we must have handed out over 100 plastic spoons to people waiting to get into the pit. Everyone wanted a Spoon and everyone wanted to hear it.

Now for that part of the story I hinted at 🙂 The part where I paid Chris back for buying me an Atlanta ticket. JPJ had their act together. One of the best venues I’ve ever been to. Minus one exception that I’ll choose not to mention. BUT They came out early and gave wristbands to everyone who had pit tickets. They then punched your ticket so you couldn’t use it again. Now remember I did NOT print out an extra copy of my pit ticket. They did NOT give Chris a wristband and he did NOT just go get in line with his regular ticket. It did NOT work for him ;). However he did later find some magical way down to the pit. Hmmn?

The time came for us to get inside. I made friends with the guys who I helped make posters with and he promised he’d save me a spot on the front row. I had just regular tickets and not Warehouse. Warehouse get’s in early. I was shivering cold and then they came out to pat us down. I hid my camera in my undies and was almost frightened into taking it out. They gave THE MOST thorough pat down ever. All the way up the leg, and all the way down the body. I was worried I’d get caught. I fortunately did not 🙂 After some hustling and bustling we got in and I ran down, ran inside, and squeezed my way up to the front. Front …at the last show of the tour.

There was no complaining about these seats. No jerks around us. This entire pit…was the harcore fans. The ones who traveled thousands of miles just to see these shows. To experience what would undoubtedly be a night we would never forget.

Two hours passed and then finally Trombone Shorty came out on stage with his band. He looked at Chris, Will, and I and just busted out laughing. He remembered The Plaid Guys. During his set I held up my other pair of glasses and he laughed came over and stuck his hand out.

He played several songs with them on, then kindly tossed them back. He then proceeded to give us his attention for the rest of the set. They played for about 35 minutes then left the stage. Here it was. The moment. Everyone was ready, everyone was tense.

We saw them bring out the little red guitar and were a little bummed because we knew it would mean Squirm opener again. It didn’t matter.